A Life Less Ordinary
by Wynn
Summary: Cordelia wakes from her coma to find herself kidnapped, barefoot, and clad in an ugly ass muumuu. Welcome to CrazyTown: Population 1. Spoilers to Destiny.


Title: A Life Less Ordinary

Author: Wynn

E-mail: effulgent_sun@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer or __Angel.  They are owned by Joss Whedon, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, the WB, UPN, etc._

AN: A writing exercise to help me overcome my severe writer's block with my WIPs.  First time writing in the present tense and first time using first person POV.  Spoilers up to _Destiny_.

Feedback is a wonderful and much appreciated thing.

A Life Less Ordinary

By: Wynn

            Have you ever had one of those days where everything just _sucks?  Today is that day for me.  It starts off relatively normal.  I wake from one of my dreams in which I'm a movie star banking 20 mil a pic and married to a supremely gorgeous man, either an actor of equable repute or an edgy, yet drug free, rock star, who worships the ground I walk on.  Worships in a studly, manly fashion.  Not a wimpy one.  Because if I wanted to be married to a wimp, I'd marry Wes.  I love the guy, and even though he's got that scruffy, broody, isolated thing going on now, he's still a wimp at heart.  Hello? He's proud of the fact he was Head Boy at Loser Academy.  Proud.  Like it's an accomplishment to be Head Nerd.  _What_ a freak.  _

            Anyway, I bask in the fantasy life for a few moments before reality hits, and I remember I gave up that dream to be a psychic link to the Powers of Whatever for a brooding, mopey vampire with a soul.  And once again I wonder how seriously damaged I was that day I chose a life of migraines and bloodstains over faboo dresses and Oscar parties.  God, I am so on the track to martyr-ville.  Next thing you know I'll be dying my hair blonde and wallowing in my self-pity about how poor and tortured I am because of my mythic Destiny and the fact that I'm separated by a cruel twist of fate from my One True Love.  

            In other words, I'd be Buffy.  

            Instead, since I am not Buffy (thank god), I accept my choice and vow to make that horrendous mistake of giving up the dream life up to me by using company funds to buy those new Jimmy Choos I saw on Rodeo.  It's not like Angel needs the money.  He's a vampire.  All he needs is one set of black clothing, a few pieces of sharp wood, and some blood, and he's all set.  Sometimes I think he'd prefer to dwell in a dark and dank sewer and suck rat blood for breakfast.  He's kind of morbid like that.  Ugh.  Now I lead myself to a scary visual.  Great.

            So, moving on.  Pleased with my ingenious plan of shop therapy, I open my eyes and discover I'm _not in my bed.  Or in my apartment.  In fact I seriously doubt I'm in the hotel because this room, the room I'm in, does not look like it was decorated by a blind Fyarl demon.  I love the Hyperion, but it lacks anything resembling good taste.  Much like Angel.  Which is probably why he was drawn to it in the first place.  I mean, besides the fact that he massacred a whole bunch of people there in the 50s and probably wanted to reminisce in all the memories of blood and gore.  Alright, so technically __he didn't massacre them.  He just left them to a vengeful poltergeist ghost thing that fed off their fear.  And sure the people he let die were a bunch of prejudiced shit-heads.  But getting bogged down by the dicey semantics achieves nothing, people.  _

            Back to the room.  I'm not in my room, and I'm not in that drafty warehouse room I stayed in with Connor, and I'm not in the hotel.  And since I don't remember getting drunk and horny the night before, I doubt I'm in some random hotel room already regretting my decision to allow that cardboardesque actor/model/personality vacuum leave with me.  All of these rapid fire deductions boil down to the fact that I've been kidnapped.  Kidnapped by people with taste, but still kidnapped nonetheless.  Warm, muted lighting; plush bedding; thick carpets; vases of gorgeous flowers.  Despite the bland color scheme, the room's pretty nice.  Nice in a psychotic kidnapping way.  But still nice.

            So I'm in a room not my own, in a bed not my own, in clothes not my own.  Yes, that's right.  The psychos who kidnapped me are perverts in addition to kidnappers.  Let's ogle the unconscious woman.  Strip her down and put her in an amorphous muumuu.  Fun for all.  

            Somebody is sogetting bitch slapped for this.

            I sit up in bed and that's when I notice it.  My hair's different.  It's brown again and longer than the chin length bob I remember having.  And that's when the world slips from CrazyTown to BizarroVille.  My kidnappers gave me a makeover?  I reach up and touch my hair, yanking on the ends.  Hard.  But nothing comes out.  Not anything expected anyway, like high-priced extensions.  It's all my hair.  And my hair may grow fast, but four inches overnight?  I don't think so.  

            Oh, god.

            How long have I been gone?  Why hasn't anyone come to rescue me yet?  I finally made it back to those losers who call themselves my friends, reboot my memory thanks to Lorne's magic mojo spell, become the Cordelia Chase everyone knows and loves, and they just let me go again?  Thanks a fucking lot, guys.  I should have just stayed in the higher dimension.  At least there it was pretty.  All sparkly and white and not this weird industrial beige decorating the Room Not Of My Own.  

            So screw this.  I am going to find my way out of this place, track down Angel, and chew him out so hard his ears will be bleeding for a month.  He went through all that trouble with ElectroGirl to get the spherical viewer thing just to find me, and then he loses me after like one week.  One week!  What a way to make a girl feel appreciated there, big guy.  

            I walk over to the door and grab the handle, fully expecting the door to be locked.  It's to be expected.  I'm kidnapped, stuck in this strange room by strange people for some strange purpose, and one would _think that the door would be locked so I couldn't escape._

            One would think.  Any sane person would think.  Any kidnapper with half a fucking clue would think.  But apparently I've been snatched by Idiot Jeb and his inbred cousin because the door's unlocked.  And I realize this as the door swings open and the momentum from my supercharged Pull of Doom causes me to fall down on my ass.  Hard.  Really hard.

            Fuuuuuck.

            So I lay sprawled on the beige patterned carpet for a few moments, breathing hard, ass growing numb from the pain, fully expecting someone to come barging in with a gun or axe or something and wonder what the hell I'm doing trying to escape their oh-so-elaborate kidnapping scheme and I better get back in that bed before they shoot me and/or chop my head off.  But nobody does.  So I pick myself up off the floor and peek out into the hallway.  Which, of course, is empty.  Empty except for the big sign at the end of the hallway.  The big sign that says Wolfram and Hart.  

            I blink once.  And then I blink again as this news settles in.  Then I get mad.  Supremely mad.  I've been captured by Wolfram and Hart.  Wolfram and fucking Hart.  The bane of Angel's existence for the past three years, and he didn't think to look for me here.  He found me in another dimension a year ago, a different goddamn _dimension_, and now he can't even find me in his own city?  Oh, he is _so _dead.  Him and Lilah.  Because I know she had something to do with this retarded scheme.  Nobody else would be that stupid.

            Pissed off beyond reason, dressed in an ill fitting muumuu and no shoes, I stalk down the hallway, ready to rip the head off the first simpering lawyer-type that crosses my path.

            Instead, I run into Spike.

            Literally.  Knocked flat on my ass for the second time in two minutes, I stare up at Spike slack-jawed and wide-eyed.  Not a pretty picture I assure you, but when you're gripped in the claws of sheer terror, looking good is not your primary concern.  Hence, the slack-jawed and wide-eyed-ness.  Spike blinks down at me, head tilted to one side, mouth curved down into a frown.  And then he takes a step forward, one hand outstretched, and I open my mouth and suck in the deepest breath imaginable.

            Let the screaming begin.

            Because screaming is a perfectly legitimate option right about now.  Last time I faced off against Spike I was armed with a crossbow.  I helped thwart his evil scheme to get that Ring of Amaretto or whatever.  So he's probably looking for some payback.  Kidnap Angel's sidekick to pay him back for setting his loony ho on fire.  And now I'm sitting here in enemy territory, defenseless, screaming my head off, in front one of the most vicious vampires in history… who just rolls his eyes and walks away.

            Um.

            That was unexpected.

            I stop screaming as I watch Imminent Death saunter away from me.  Frown forming on my face, I glance behind me to make sure no minions are sneaking up on me ready to slit my throat.  No minions.  No lawyers either.  Oookay.  Maybe I'm hallucinating.  Maybe Spike's just a figment of my obviously stressed and overworked imagination.  But figments aren't solid and Spike was definitely solid.  So maybe it wasn't Spike.  Just another black clad, duster-wearing, platinum haired, blue eyed man strolling around Wolfram and Hart like he owned the place.  

            "Spike!"

            Or maybe it was Spike.

            With Angel.

            What?

            "How many times do I have to tell you to _stop_ terrorizing my employees?"

            "Obviously one more."

            Employees?  Angel has employees at Wolfram and Hart?  What the hell?

            "You're solid now.  That means I can make you go away.  Permanently."

            "Big words, Peaches.  Now, tell me again who kicked who's ass during our last showdown?"  A moment passed and then Spike said, "Exactly."

            Angel and Spike are chatting in the middle of Wolfram and Hart.  Chatting.  Angel's not killing Spike.  He's talking _with _him.  About possibly, _potentially killing him.  Oh, god.  _

            Angel's not Angel anymore.  

            He's Angelus.

            "And besides, I didn't do anything.  All I did was run into the Cheerleader and she freaked out, started screaming right in the middle of the hallway like a banshee."

            "What?  You ran into who?"  

            "The Cheerleader.  Cordelia.  Looks like Sleeping Beauty's finally woken up."

            And I really want to run right now.  Really want to.  But I'm not, which, I know, is really stupid since there are two scary ass vampires right around the corner, but my brain's not cooperating.  It's still trying to figure out Angel and Spike in Wolfram and Hart not fighting but talking about Angel's employees and Spike terrorizing them but not me and only giving me an exasperated eye roll like I was retarded or something and not a hungry vampire's tasty morsel.  I pause a moment in my mental tirade.  Now I fully understand where I am.  I am in Hell.  My own personal, shoeless, muumuu clad Hell.  

            Life seriously sucks sometimes.

            I hear a shuffle of footsteps at the end of the hall and then Angel peeks his head around the corner, eyes going wide when he sees me. 

            "Cordelia…"

            I blink at Angel as he moves into the hallway.  Then I stupidly raise my hand and wave to him.

            "Wow, talk about eloquent.  You wit astounds me sometimes, Angelus.  Your girly's been in a coma for over a year and the only thing you can say to her is 'Cordelia?'  God, no wonder you liked my poetry."

            At this point, a few things flash through my mind at the same time.

            One: Spike wrote poetry.  He _wrote poetry.  A vampire wrote __poetry._

            Two: Angel liked Spike's poetry.  Angel liked something _Spike_ did.  His _poetry_.

            Three: I just possibly waved to Angelus instead of turning and high tailing it out of there.  I am _deeply stupid._

            Four: I am _still_ in an ugly muumuu standing in the middle of Wolfram and Hart.  And I have tangled hair.

            Five: According to Spike, I was in a coma.  For over a year.  Which seems to be a shock only to me as Angel just stands there looking at me like I'm going to break down into hysterics at any moment due to the news that I was _in a coma for over a year!_

            I blink at Angel again as he says, "Hey, Cordelia… I think we need to talk."

*                      *                      *

            It's not everyday you learn that you were tricked by an evil-in-disguise demon into ascending to a higher dimension so a disgruntled deity could hitchhike back with you to Earth in order to birth herself through you after forcing you to sleep with a teenaged demon killer, murder one of your friends' lover, and then pop out of you three months later as a fully grown goddess who wants to take over the world by creating Paradise on Earth populated with mindless, happy slaves who occasionally serve as tasty morsels for the Supreme just birthed Ruler goddess who named herself after a flower and died at the hands of said teenaged demon killer after he punched her through her maggot-filled head.

            A fucking flower.  

            Why didn't she just go all the way and call herself Pansy or Daffodil?  

            So it's not everyday, yet today is _my _day.  My day where I learn that nearly two years of my life have been stolen from me.  My day where I learn that life as I knew it is over, the world kept turning, and everything's just different now.  Everything's gone.  My job.  My apartment.  Everything.  

            The suckage keeps on coming, doesn't it?  

            I sit at the bar in a nameless L.A. pub staring blankly into my glass of whiskey.  I don't even like whiskey, but if any moment ever called for a drink of whiskey, it is thismoment.  

            I have my whiskey in hand, and my mind keeps turning everything I've learned about the past couple of years over and over and over again.  I had sex with Connor.  I slept with him.  Angel's son.  A kid.  A screwed up, lonely kid.  Oh, god.  I clench my jaw against the rise of bile in my throat.  My hands tighten on the crystal tumbler. 

            I remember.  Bits and pieces.  They're slowly coming back to me the longer I'm awake and the stronger I get.  I remember the feel of Connor's tear soaked face the first time that I- that Jasmine- kissed him.  I remember the warm blood coating my hands; remember seeing the light fade from Lilah's eyes as she died before me.  I remember Willow, talking to me as if I were the real Cordelia.  I remember wanting to slash her throat.  I remember the bright splash of red blood against my swollen pale stomach and Connor's face as he murdered that poor girl, and the sense of glee and triumph that coursed through me as I prepared to give birth.  To her.  To it.  To me.

            I remember.  

            A murderer.

            A manipulator.

            I remember.

            And I wish I didn't.  

            Everyone was so happy that I was awake.  So happy.  Fred and Gunn and Lorne.  Wes and Angel.  Even Harmony was glad that I was awake.  They gave me big smiles and even bigger hugs and then they all went back to work at their nice, new, shiny formerly evil law firm and told me I should rest because I'm probably tired from my 'ordeal.'  Like I've run a marathon instead of woken from a year long coma after a demonic possession.  

            And the fact that I now have insight into the mind of Faith and how she felt when she went all psycho-er and tried to kill Angel after waking from _her coma horrifies me to no end.  _

            I feel sympathy.  

            For Faith.

            Just kill me now.

            And I can't help thinking that the real reason everyone left wasn't because of some important meeting with a client or because of some pompous world saveage they have to do.  I can't help thinking they left because of me, because of all the things this Jasmine did in my body, with my hands, wearing my face.  It's strange looking at the same face, the one that tried to kill you and tormented you and tortured you, and trying to logically remember that this face belongs to your friend and not to the bitch goddess that highjacked her.  I know.  We all went through it with Angel.  Looking at Angel and remembering the things he did as Angelus.  Trying not to flinch every time he comes in the room or touches you on the arm.    

            It hurts.  Having them not being able to deal with what happened.  It hurts a lot.  It would probably hurt less if I had a life to return to, but I don't.  Angel doesn't need a link to the Powers anymore.  He's hardwired into Evil Inc. now.  He doesn't need a confidante, not with him and mind-wiped Wesley chums again.  He doesn't need me to pull him from the brink of utter broodiness anymore, to tell him when he's acting like an ass or when he's being a dork because he has Spike for that.  So what am I to him now?  What am I to anyone?

            What am I?

            Who am I?

            I start out of my maudlin reverie as a teardrop slips off the end of my nose and plops down into my whiskey.  Great.  Now I'm blotchy, puffy eyed, and depressed.  I grab my napkin from under my glass and dab at the corners of my eyes.  And that's when I see it.  In my peripheral vision.  A television propped high in the corner of the bar, volume on mute, broadcasting an entertainment news show to the semi-drunk and bored masses.  Names and faces of celebrities flash across the screen.  Some are familiar to me.  Some aren't.  A headline at the bottom of the picture reads: _Who will win this year's Oscar race?        _

            I watch the television with the rapt attention of someone who's never seen one of them before, and the answer to all of my questions pops into my brain.

            Who am I?

            I'm Cordelia Chase.

            Queen C.

            Reigning Bitch of Sunnydale High School.

            Who am I?  Someone who does not, under any circumstances, settle for anything less than the absolute best.  Someone who is not afraid to go after what I want.  Someone who is determined enough, smart enough, and brave enough to actually get it.  Someone who does not sit in a dark, smoky bar, clutching stale piss in a fake crystal glass, moping about how much my life sucks, wallowing in my own freakish misery, and not doing a damn thing about it.

            The world is a big place.  I know.  I've seen it all from up on high.  _My_ world is a big place.  Bigger than the walls of Wolfram and Hart.  Bigger than the confines of the night and the demons that reside in it.  

            I toss my hair over my shoulder and place my glass down on the countertop.  A few rays of brilliant mid-afternoon sunshine are spilling into the bar through the open door.  A smile breaks out on my face as I smooth a hand over my shirt (thank god they had the sense to keep _some of my clothes; starting my new life dressed as Fred Jr. would not make a good impression.)_

            Smile on my face, determination in my eyes, new Jimmy Choos on my feet (what?  like I'd really _not indulge in shop therapy today of all days), and one of Angel's company credit cards clasped firmly in hand, I stride across the bar and step into the sun._

            My dream awaits.

*                      *                      *


End file.
